Advent Challenge '15

Monday, May 19, 2014

My year of less is more: so how does it go when the 'less' continues to spiral out of your control?

I kicked off 2014 with such optimism. Such a sense of control. Finally I had cracked it. No longer was I going to feel panicky. No longer was I going to awake in a cold sweat at 4am. No longer was I going to let life get away from me. Ahh - the arrogance of it all.

Last week I had to pull the pin on all my daughter's extracurricular activities. Not just reduce. Not just create less. Create nothing. A schedule of nothing more than eating and sleeping. This is NOT the 'less' I was thinking of. I know that I didn't want the 'more'. But I didn't think we'd end up with nothing. This was a hard moment for me.

Over the school holidays our daughter improved a lot from her sickness and fatigue of the first three months of the year. We saw a significant improvement in her health. She even went to three consecutive full days of school at the start of term. She was so happy and we felt like finally our life could regain some predictability and control. Yay Team Us!

But after a few days at school she developed another milder virus and she's been really fatigued again. Two weeks of lying on the lounge. We're almost back where we were two months ago. Now we're back dreaming of her attending some school, any school. Actually, we're dreaming of her being able to sit upright for more than just a short period of time. How the goal posts keep shifting. Back and forth. We're starting to get dizzy.

My plans and dreams are so fragile. I know this is nothing new, but unsurprisingly I've felt the weight of this reality more heavily in recent months. The plans can get blown away with such a little puff of air.

Life is not in my control. I keep trying to live like it is, like it could be, but those goal posts keep wandering around. They just don't stay where I want them to stay. Turns out that this isn't MY year of less is more. It's God's, where he's helping me to learn to be more dependent in his control of all things and less dependent on my schemes to get life under control.

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

Read a bit more here about my experience of coping with my daughter's illness.

6 comments:

Jenny and Jean, although I haven't experienced the challenges you have of parenting a child with a chronic illness, I have found your posts on this topic such a great reminder that it is God who is in control of all things that happen in our lives. Thank you both :)

Oh Jenny, my heart goes out to you (and you, Jean). Keep putting one step in front of the other in faith. Sometimes God teaches us such hard trials, but He is so loving, kind and merciful as He walks with us through them. Praying for your daughter, that she will be well again.